This is how the Air Force rates your base’s public education services

Air Force families – and other military families stationed at joint Air Force bases – have new information on important quality of life issues in facilities, with a base-by-base assessment for public education services and the transferability of military spouse licenses.

This is the second year the Air Force has conducted this comprehensive assessment of these issues in the communities around all 157 air bases. The first, published in 2020, was based on 2019 data. This estimate is based on public data available as of May 2021.

Public data from the school districts were used for the assessment in order to assess school performance, the school climate and the range of services. An Air Force team evaluated kindergarten through 12th grade public school districts within the military residential area of ​​Air Force facilities, defined as the geographic areas where service members look for community accommodation.

The range of services includes preschool classes; Relationship of students to advisors; Ratio of students to mental health support; Relationship of students to nurses; and student-teacher ratio. These offers facilitate transitions and offer students emotional academic support. The overall assessment is based 60 percent on school performance, 20 percent on the school climate and 20 percent on the range of services.

The report compares public education opportunities at all 157 Air Force facilities and ranks them based on these findings. There are no number rankings, but rather dividing them into thirds to get information about the position of a particular base compared to all other bases. It color-codes the overall results and each component of the results. A “red” code means the base is in the lower third and is described as the least supportive to military families; “Yellow” means moderately supportive and “green” means that it is one of the most supportive bases.

Bases move up or down

Seventeen airbases improved in terms of public education support that year, and 18 fell. Many of those that have improved are Air National Guard bases, but active bases that have made gains include Altus Air Force Base, Oklahoma, and Mountain Home AFB, Idaho, which is the middle of the three Levels have ascended to the highest level. Vance AFB, Oklahoma; Holloman AFB, New Mexico; and Scott AFB, Illinois moved from the bottom row to the middle row.

Active bases at the top end of the “most supportive” tier of education include Luke AFB, Arizona; Beale AFB, Los Angeles AFB and Vandenberg AFB, California; Hanscom AFB, Massachusetts; Whiteman AFB, Montana; Minot AFB, North Dakota; McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst Joint Base, New Jersey; Arnold AFB, Tennessee; Sheppard AFB, Texas; and Hill AFB, Utah.

Among the active bases that fell in rating was Goodfellow AFB, Texas, which rose from the top level of public education to the bottom. Others moved from the middle tier, which was previously moderately supportive, to the lowest tier and had the least supportive educational services. These include: Joint Base Langley-Eustis, Virginia; Fairchild AFB and Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington .; Francis E. Warren AFB, Wyoming; and Shaw AFB, South Carolina.

At the lowest end, the “least supportive” active bases, are the US Air Force Academy in Colorado; Maxwell AFB, Alabama; Little Rock AFB, Arkansas; Schriever Space Force Base, Colorado; MacDill AFB and Tyndall AFB, Florida; Robins AFB, Georgia; McConnell AFB, Kansas; Barksdale AFB, Louisiana; Columbus AFB, Mississippi; Malmstrom AFB, Montana; Seymour Johnson AFB, North Carolina; and Laughlin AFB, Texas.

Many bases are right in the middle of the upper and middle levels.

Transfer of professional authorizations

Officials also looked at the ease of transferring work permits, an important issue for spouses.

The rating provides the same color coding for rating the portability of licenses, but does not rank the fundamentals against each other in relation to this issue. License transferability guidelines depend on the laws and regulations of a state.

In this year’s ratings, two states – Idaho and South Dakota – switched from yellow to green status, with progress being made in portability efforts for virtually all occupations. But South Carolina was downgraded from green to yellow because laws were passed that increased licensing requirements.

The professions of accounting, cosmetics, rescue service, engineering, law, nursing, physiotherapy, psychology, teaching and “other professions” are assessed. Some states had changes in portability for certain professions. For example, although California has a “red” or least supportive rating, there was a change to change the license transferability for accounting in that state from “red” to “green”.

Air Force takes the lead

The formation and transferability of licenses are issues that have long been identified as keys to the quality of life, whereabouts and family readiness of all military families.

The Air Force is the only branch of service that has adopted these comprehensive public education assessments around its bases and made them publicly available. The rating provides military families with insight into the status of public education opportunities at each base, with maps of the local school districts that serve the base.

By analyzing information at the state level, the rating also assesses the ease of transferring a spouse’s license to the state in which that base is located. The process is often costly and time consuming and delays the spouse’s ability to continue their career in the new locations.

The evaluation also serves other purposes.

The results of these assessments are one of several factors considered in Air Force strategic decisions. In this process, Air Force officials collect additional data to update school and license information at the local level.

The publicly available results also provide information on what local and state officials can do to alleviate challenges facing military families. According to the Air Force assessment results announcement for 2021, there has been increasing discussion among local school districts, local government officials, and the Air Force focusing on how communities can understand the needs of children with military connections and provide the best possible support.

“Much of this discussion was turned into action, which resulted in the installations seeing improvements in overall educational outcomes,” officials said.

Regarding the ease of transferring professional licenses, Air Force officials found that more than 60 state laws relating to military spouse licensing helped remove some barriers, speed procedural deadlines, and reduce costs. A number of efforts are underway, fueled by more than a decade of work by the DoD State Liaison Office.

Effects of the pandemic

Many schools across the country were badly hit by the pandemic last year. In their review, officials stated that COVID has not yet had an impact on the data they use in their analysis, but that they will continue to assess any impact of COVID on the criteria they use. Based on the different survey periods for the education data sources (2017-2018; 2018-2019 and 2019-2021), many of the periods are shortly before or shortly before the start of the pandemic. The Air Force uses the latest data released by the Department of Education and the Stanford Education Data Archive.

To develop the assessment, Air Force officials worked with national policy experts and subject matter experts to develop the criteria and framework for the annual assessment of military family support.

You can find more information on the assessment and the methodology here.